


The Anti-Hero Awkwardly Returns

by soulfulsam



Series: Timing Is Everything [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Drama, Established Relationship, F/M, Love Triangles, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25198393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulfulsam/pseuds/soulfulsam
Summary: Ron returns to Harry and Hermione, ready to hunt horcruxes and win back over Hermione after leaving them for several weeks. Instead, he finds that the relationship between Hermione and Harry has changed in his absence:Harry pulled the burnt-out horcrux from his pocket and gestured his head towards it, shamefaced. Hermione moved her eyes between him and it, taking a moment to put it all together. Harry carefully chose his words before he next spoke.“Ron destroyed it,” he said quietly. “But it didn’t go down without a fight.”“Oh!” Hermione’s cheeks went pink, but whether from embarrassment or rage Harry couldn’t quite tell. “So it – did it…”“It showed me the thing it knew would destroy me, Hermione!” Ron roared, stabbing his finger emphatically against his chest. “How could you do that to me? And I had to find out from Tom bloody Riddle!”Posted as a Part II of "Time is Not on Our Side" but makes 100% total sense as a stand-alone story.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Series: Timing Is Everything [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570120
Comments: 23
Kudos: 131





	1. Chapter 1

Harry and Hermione laid curled up together on his bunk, wrapped in a tangled mess of sheets. Sometimes it was still hard for Harry to believe he was shagging Hermione – for years, he was sure he had forever lost her to Ron, but as of twenty minutes ago they had had sex twice. And their second time had been, well, it was pretty good. Much better than their first time two days before, when Hermione had been uncomfortable and appeared to be more researching sex than experiencing it. Now… he was glad that Hermione always put up a ‘mufflato’ charm every time they set up camp. They had tried a new position this time – her on top at her suggestion. She had wiggled her hips this way and that to find what felt good for her and by the end she was bouncing up and down on him hard enough that his bunk began to quietly squeak. And when she came… It was brilliant. She actually came while he was inside her. After his less than stellar performance their first time, he was afraid it might not ever happen, but there she was writhing in pleasure over top of him and he had gotten to be the one who made her feel that way. He was thrilled he could bring her the same kind of pleasure that she gave to him. As she lay with her head on his chest, he watched her blissful smile and kissed the top of her head.

Hermione’s expression turned thoughtful as she began soothing her thumb over the ‘I must not tell lies’ scar on his hand that Umbridge had given him 5th year.

"Maybe we should just stay here. Grow old,” she murmured into his chest.

“If only we could,” he whispered to her. He paused and then unnecessarily added, “Dumbledore” as if what Hermione had said was actually a serious suggestion, or she needed to be reminded about what they had lost. As if she was the only one who needed to be talked out of the idea because he wasn’t already thinking on it himself.

She kissed the shell of his ear. “My parents.”

“Sirius.”

“Ron,” she whispered sadly.

Harry nodded. As sad as it was to remember the people they had already permanently lost, it was somehow worse to think about those who they weren’t sure they would ever see again.

“I know we can’t give up,” she whispered. “But is it so bad to sometimes want to?”

Harry shook his head and held her tighter, wishing desperately that the two of them could just stay as they were until the end of time.

A few minutes later, Hermione’s breathing evened out and deepened. Despite the heaviness of their conversation, she was in one of those rare moments when she actually looked peaceful as she slept. Harry wished he could have the same for himself; unfortunately, he could tell that sleep wasn’t going to come easy to him this evening.

The horcrux was acting up again. Ever since he had put it on earlier in the day a series of intrusive images had begun to enter his mind and the more he fought them, the stronger they grew and even Hermione’s warmth and his afterglow couldn’t quiet them. He saw Hermione lying dead in front of him, a single tear rolling from her open eye; Luna being hit with a restraining curse by snatchers as she fed the thestrials behind Hogwarts; Hermione screaming in pain as a masked Death Eater flicked his wand in slashing motions opening deep gashes all over her body; Ron’s name being read over the radio on the list of confirmed dead; Ginny being attacked by a group of Slytherins while Snape watched. He laid in bed for a while watching the gradual rise and fall of Hermione’s chest under the covers and the serene look on her face before he carefully slipped out of bed, got dressed, and left the tent to take his watch.

Harry sat on a fallen log outside the tent and stared out at the wilderness around him, one hand absentmindedly fingering his sweater over where the horcrux lay. He replayed Hermione’s words in his mind over and over again: _Maybe we should just stay here. Grow old._ The idea was so tempting that it frightened him. _Stay here._ He knew he shouldn’t let himself dwell on it, but he let his mind drift into a series of little fantasies: Hermione safely wrapped in his arms night after night; seeing Hermione smile warmly as she held her growing, round belly; having a snowball fight in the forest with a little boy who had bushy brown hair and bright green eyes; Hermione coming up behind him as he sat on this very log, but with white streaks in her hair and laughter wrinkles on her face.

Involuntarily, perhaps inevitably, his thoughts shifted to an alternate version of their future: Hermione writhing in agony on the floor of the Ministry of Magic under the Cruciatis curse; a fearful Hermione, face scarred horribly by flinging curses falling to the floor; Harry burying her in an unmarked grave. _Stay here. Grow old._ Harry clenched his jaw in frustration. This bloody horcrux would be the death of him if he wasn’t careful. His fingers once again traced the outline of the locket underneath his shirt. It was affecting his mood faster than ever since it had learned his weak spots and where to needle him. He wondered if it was the same for Hermione – when she wore the locket, did she see him lying dead on the forest floor somewhere? Perhaps that was why she had suggested hanging it all up in the first place. _You don’t even have your wand anymore_ , a voice in his head said. _You can’t protect her. You can’t protect anyone._

He was buried so deep in his thoughts that at first he didn’t notice the bright blue light slipping through their protective charms and headed right for him. It grew in size and intensity until a wide swath of forest in front of him was alight in blue and only then did Harry look up and quickly rise to his feet. Not daring to take his eyes off of it, he called out once for Hermione and then the light got close enough to see it was a patronus of a doe. No one he knew had that patronus. It approached slowly and Harry instinctively took a couple of steps towards it. The doe turned and began lazily trotting back off to the forest but then stopped and turned its head as if beckoning him to follow. He felt like it was friendly. He didn’t know how he knew it was, but he just did. Either way, whomever cast it knew exactly where he and Hermione were and if they weren’t friendly, they could have just as easily attacked them outright if they wanted to.

“Hermione!”

The tent was silent. Bloody hell was she a heavy sleeper. He took several decisive steps towards the doe and it turned around and began once again trotting along into the forest. Harry followed, eager to find who – or what – the doe was taking him to.

. . .

An hour later found Harry violently spluttering and coughing up a mouthful of water. His lungs burned and he felt colder than he ever had in his entire life. He took a deep breath. He wasn’t dead. The thought both shocked and bewildered him. There was no escape from underneath that layer of ice on the lake before the horcux would have strangled him to death. Wait – the horcrux! He raised a shaking hand to his reddened and raw neck where it had bit into his flesh as it choked him. It was gone. Beside him someone was panting and coughing and then staggering to their feet. Hermione. She must have heard him call out to her before he followed the doe and had followed after him. She had saved him at Bathilda’s house and now she had saved him once again -

“Are you mental?”

“Ron?”

What the hell? He spun his head and saw a sopping wet Ron giving him an incredulous stare. What was Ron doing here? He wasn’t about to complain – Harry was thrilled he was there, had spent too many restless nights worried that Ron would be one of the people he might never see again, but… how?

“Why the hell didn’t you take this off before you dived?” Ron asked holding up the horcrux in front of him by the broken chain.

The locket itself was swinging back and forth agitatedly, clearly on its own power and of course it would; in his other hand, Ron held the sword of Gryffindor. Ron followed Harry’s eyeline to the sword he was holding and he blinked, as if he too was shocked to be holding it.

“I – uh – well, I pulled it out.” He gestured unnecessarily to the lake behind them. “I imagine that’s what you were after down there, yeah?”

Harry blinked, hardly able to believe his own eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Ron lowered the horcrux and scratched the back of his neck, as if he didn’t expect the question to be coming, or hoped Harry would be too polite to ask it.

“Well, I’m – I’m here. If you still want me, that is.”

Harry continued to stare at Ron, at once feeling grateful, furious, relieved, and tense. He had come back. He had saved his life. But only after he had abandoned them. They didn’t think he was coming back. He was gone for over a month and now, inexplicably, he was here as if he’d never left. Ron raised his wand and cast a drying charm on Harry before performing one on himself.

“What are you doing in only your pants? Reckon you must be freezing.”

He gestured to Harry’s clothes beside him. Of course. In all the shock and confusion Harry hadn’t even noticed his clothes were right there. He hurriedly grabbed his sweater and threw it over his head, then dove for the rest of his clothes.

“How did you find us?” he asked as he slid one leg into his trousers.

“Well, that’s a bit of a long story. But I’ve been wandering around this forest for hours looking for you. I thought I might have to kip under a tree but then I saw the patronus and you following it.”

“Wait, so you didn’t cast it?”

“No, of course not. My patronus is a dog. I thought it was you.”

“No. My patronus is a stag.”

“Oh! Right. I thought it looked different. No antlers.”

“Then who cast it? Did you see anyone besides me?”

Ron shook his head. “No, mate.”

Harry slid on his last piece of clothing – a loafer – and was fully dressed in under a minute. Ron, for his part continued to stand awkwardly in front of him and move his gaze from Harry to the sword and locket and back again. Harry was glad to have Ron back. He had spent many nights wishing their friend would return and he knew that through Hermione’s grief and rage that she felt the same. But a lot had happened since he had left them. Now wasn’t the time to discuss any of it, though; there would be plenty of time for that later. Now they needed to get rid of this bloody locket. They had the sword and Harry knew they had to act quickly and decisively to destroy this horcrux before it killed them all. He didn’t know what it would do, but it had already nearly strangled him to death; now that it knew they could kill it, there was no telling what it would try on them if they returned to camp with Tom Riddle’s soul still inside the thing.

“Right,” Harry said once he was fully dressed. “Let’s get on with it then. You have to stab it.”

“Me? Why me?”

Harry was a big believer in a lot of things, but coincidences wasn’t one of them. Especially when it came to magic; Dumbledore had taught him that. There had to be a reason that, on this night of all nights, Ron had found his way back to them and had gotten the sword where Harry had failed. Harry didn’t have it because he wasn’t the one who was supposed to kill it. That honor belonged to Ron and Ron alone.

“I can’t explain it really. I just know. You got the sword, it feels like it should be you.”

Ron shook his head. “I can’t. You don’t understand, Harry. I can’t. That locket, it affects me more than it does either of you. It was making me think things – well, things I was thinking already – but it made them really bad. And I can’t. I can’t go against it again. It’s too much.”

Something Hermione had said a month ago flashed through Harry’s mind: _Ron was always jealous of you. The horcrux just made him act on it._ Harry gulped and shook his head.

“I know, I know that Ron. Maybe that’s why you have to be the one who does it.”

Ron shot him a doubting but frightened stare and his chest heaved as he took a deep breath.

“Look, I just can’t explain how I know but I just know,” Harry insisted. “It has to be you.”

After several minutes of arguing later, Ron was shakily holding the sword of Gryffindor in his hands as Harry draped the locket over a flat rock, held it in place, and commanded it to open in Parseltongue. Harry and Ron both knew the locket would put up a fight. Harry wasn’t sure what to expect, but he had to admit he was thinking that the locket would try to protect itself with some kind of more traditional form of attack – trying to possess Ron perhaps, or sending imaginary spiders after him, or even Tom Riddle himself jumping out of the locket ready the duel the both of them. How simple he was.

“I have seen your heart and it's mine. I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears,” Riddle’s voice from within the horcrux cooed.

“Ron! Don’t listen to it!” Harry screamed.

“You were always least loved by your mother, who always wanted a daughter. Now least loved by the girl who prefers your friend.”

“Stab it!” Harry shouted.

Mist figures of Harry and Hermione floated out of the locket holding hands. They both looked more beautiful and more cruel than they ever were as they sneered at him.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” Riddle’s version of Harry condescended. “We were better off without you. Happier.”

“What woman could love you,” Hermione snarled, “compared to the Boy Who Lived? What are you compared to him? You’re nothing!”

“Your mother confessed she would have preferred me as a son,” Harry condescended.

“She didn’t! It lies!” Harry screamed, but to no avail. Ron stood transfixed by the images and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the sword tighter.

“Do I lie?” Riddle spat. “Ronald Weasley, I have also seen into the hearts of both of your friends,” Tom Riddle continued on as an open-mouthed wide-eyed Ron looked on, “and all you have feared would happen has already come to pass in your absence.”

The mist figures of Harry and Hermione were both suddenly very much naked and kissing passionately in front of Ron. Harry gaped at the images in abject horror. It looked – well, it reminded him of way he and Hermione had kissed naked in the tent the first time they had had sex. It was at once mortifying to see his friend watching it and nauseating to think about Tom Riddle watching them and taking notes on how to use their most intimate moments against them.

“Stab it!” Harry screamed. “Ron! Stab it! You have to stab it!”

“The funniest part is that you could have stopped us from shagging,” Hermione crooned, “if only you had come back just one week earlier. But now I’m in love with Harry. And I will never love you. Never.”

The figures were now lying down naked on a bunk, mist Harry on top of mist Hermione as he kissed her and pumped his hips. Fake Harry was moving with more skill and finesse than Harry knew he really had, but the rest of it felt very similar. Harry cringed as he realized Riddle planned to play out their entire experience to torture Ron. He felt anger and shame course through him.

“You can have the girl,” Riddle’s voice broke in amongst the images, “by getting rid of The Boy Who Lived. No one will know.”

“Ron! Stab it!” Harry screamed. “RON! STAB IT!”

Hearing his name repeated brought Ron out of his reverie. He raised the sword and ran towards him. Harry dove out of the way of the sword and threw one of his hands over his head and neck to protect himself, while quickly clutching Hermione’s wand with the other. He had slept with Hermione and now Ron was going to murder him for it. He heard the clang of metal against metal and a long, painful scream and then absolute silence. Harry whipped around, wand held out in front of him but there was nothing to fight. Ron was on his knees slouched over, the sword laying beside him in the snow. He was crying softly. On the rock, the locket was empty and smoking.

Harry staggered over to Ron and picked up the sword. He could see that Ron was shaking, but he knew it wasn’t from the cold. He turned back to the log, pretending to not notice to let Ron preserve his dignity. Once he was in front of the smoking husk of the horcrux, he lifted it roughly and examined it closely. Whatever had been living in it was clearly gone; it was nothing more than a ruined, charred locket, nothing anymore of interest. Still, he continued to stare at it as Ron regained his composure. 

At last, he heard the snow crunch behind him as Ron stumbled to his feet. He was no longer crying but was clearly anguished by what he had just seen. Harry felt a thick sick wave of guilt wash over him. He didn’t feel guilty for loving Hermione, but it still somehow felt like a betrayal to accept the love that Ron so desperately wanted, even if he already knew that he hadn’t stolen her from Ron. And he would have handed over the entire contents of his vault at Gringotts to have protected Ron from seeing what the horcrux had shown him.

“Hermione…” Harry started gently, “she cried for a week after you left. She – and I – we both really missed you. And I’m glad you’re back. And she will be, too. We can’t do this without you.”

Ron’s face twisted into what could be interpreted as a smile if the horror in his eyes weren’t still evident.

“You didn’t say…” He trailed off and looked as if he both did and didn’t want to say what he was thinking next. “It’s true, isn’t it? What it said about you. That you’re – well – are you – are you -” he gestured to the empty sky where the mist figures of he and Hermione were just moments ago, “doing what Tom Riddle showed me? With Hermione?”

Harry felt the blood rush to his face and suddenly he felt rather hot under his sweater. He was really hoping Ron would have assumed everything it had shown him was a lie it had created to protect itself. But the horcrux had realized that the best way to torture Ron was to just show him what he had already suspected or at least feared to be true and would therefore readily accept as the truth. The worst part of it, of course, what best tortured all three of them, was that Harry couldn’t tell him that it was actually a lie. He knew he would have to tell Ron about them eventually, but to have to do it this way after what the horcrux had shown Ron felt cruel. He supposed though that that was the point. Harry looked at a point in the forest past Ron’s shoulder, not quite able to meet his eyes.

“Almost everything Riddle said was a bunch of bollocks. Your mum never said those things. And you’re important to Hermione. She would never think of you as nothing -”

“Fuck.”

Ron whispered it so quietly that Harry at once almost missed it and it also immediately shut him up. Ron turned his face up to the sky and tightly shut his eyes, looking as if he was holding off another round of tears. Harry chanced a look into Ron’s eyes and was glad that he was the one holding the sword.

“Bloody hell, Harry! You can’t even look at me when I ask you the question. It’s true, isn’t it? About you and Hermione?”

“Um,” he scratched the back of his neck and cast his eyes to the ground. “It wasn’t something we planned exactly.”

“So it is true then. You’re – you’re -” Ron paused and looked as if he was about to throw up, “shagging her.”

After he finally got those last two words out, Ron winced as if he had just downed a batch of polyjuice potion. Harry nodded very slightly and then saw Ron shift and take a step towards him. His hand shot down to his waistband where he had Hermione’s wand safely nestled and he wanted to take a step back, but willed himself not to.

“When did – how -” Ron’s adam’s apple bobbed as he visibly swallowed. “How many times did it happen?”

“What?”

The shocking absurdity of Ron’s question made Harry forget all guilt and awkwardness for a moment and he stared into his friend’s eyes in astonishment. Ron was shaking anew, this time anger evident along with his grief. Harry felt new pangs of guilt and pity for his friend.

“Is that something you honestly want to know?” Harry asked.

Ron quickly nodded, even as the anguish on his face grew. Harry hesitated. He couldn’t imagine anything good coming from his answering that question. If their situations were reversed, he wouldn’t want to know. He was almost certain Hermione had been a virgin like him when they decided to be together, but he never asked about it, or her past with Ron or Viktor Krum. He didn’t want to think about another boy touching her, and now that she was with him, none of it even mattered. But Ron didn’t even need to imagine – he had been given visuals of what had happened. He couldn’t imagine how much more painful knowing how many times they had done it would be for Ron. No number, no matter how big or small, would ease his pain and he was quite sure Hermione wouldn’t appreciate him sharing that part of their relationship with anyone else. A long pause stretched between them.

“Tell me, Harry,” Ron insisted. “I need to know. I’m back in this no matter what. But I – I just need to know.”

“Why?” Harry tried. Ron scowled, but Harry pressed on. “No, honestly, why would you want to know something like that? Will it change anything for you?”

Ron shrugged and then nodded. “It might.”

“Twice,” he reluctantly answered after another long pause.

Ron nodded again, predictably not looking even a little comforted by the answer.

“I was hoping you were going to say it was just the once. And you both realized it was a mistake. Or at least she did.”

“I’m sorry, Ron.”

“Were you – were you doing _that_ before I left?”

“What? No!”

Harry couldn’t even think of a time when he and Hermione would have even had the privacy for such things back when Ron was around. Immediately following that thought though, his mind flashed through all the times Ron had glared at him suspiciously, or given one or both of them the cold shoulder, or said something rude about being treated as if he wasn’t even there. He had been wearing the horcrux every time and Harry had never delved beyond that before, but it suddenly occurred to him that many of those times were when he had been alone with Hermione for anywhere between a few minutes and an hour, while Ron was either outside alone on watch or inside while Harry was outside walking the perimeter of their camp site and chatting with Hermione. His eyebrows furrowed together and he looked at his friend with new understanding of just how deeply his insecurities ran and how increasingly miserable they must have been making him.

“Did you think…” Harry struggled for words, trying to find a way to put what he was about to say delicately, “…that was happening every time I was alone with Hermione?”

“Well, sounds like I had good reason to, didn’t I?”

Harry felt a surge of ire over the accusation that he and Hermione were sneaking around behind Ron’s back, but he quickly tried to it tamp down. While it wasn’t particularly sensitive to Ron’s feelings, neither of them had done anything wrong. But he felt his desire to fix his and Ron’s friendship win out over his feelings of injustice.

“Ron, we weren’t – it wasn’t like that.”

“When? The minute I walked out that tent?”

“No. Look, I truly am sorry Ron. I understand why you’re angry with me, but it just was something that happened gradually over time.”

Ron narrowed his eyes into slits. “What about Ginny?”

Harry flexed his neck by turning his head from side to side and took a moment to look away from Ron and into the moonlit snow-covered forest as he tried to control his growing anger and impatience with Ron’s change of track.

“What about her?”

“Aren’t you even the least bit concerned that she’ll be heartbroken when she finds out about this? Did you ever even care for her?”

“Of course I do,” Harry said with more of a biting edge to his voice than he intended. “Ginny and I broke up.”

Ron snorted. “Yeah, well, that kiss at Bill and Fleur’s wedding didn’t look like your were broken up.”

“I didn’t – she kissed me! I stopped it and told her -”

Harry shut his mouth and huffed out an exasperated growl. Ron didn’t want to hear it. An explanation didn’t even matter. He didn’t really care about his sister’s broken heart at that moment, just about putting Harry into the wrong whichever way he could to justify his own feelings.

“You’re a right foul git, you know that?” Ron shouted. “You snog my sister and then shag the woman I – well – that I…” Ron’s voice broke on the last two words in a way that made him sound like a young pre-pubescent boy. “How even could you, Harry?”

Harry gulped at hearing that. Ron thought he was _in love_ with Hermione. Harry knew of course that he fancied her, but he expressed it in between bouts of drooling over Fleur along with half the other members of the Beauxbaton school, shagging Lavender, and crass comments about several other Hogwarts girls. He never once considered that Ron’s feelings for Hermione ran so deep.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Ron stepped around him and began heading back out into the forest following along Harry’s footsteps. “Just show me which way to the camp.”

“Wait, you’re – you’re still staying?”

“I said I was, didn’t I?” Ron snapped.

Harry jerked his head a little in surprise, but then took a few steps towards him and nodded his head in the direction Ron was walking.

“You’re headed in the right direction. My footprints should take you right back to the camp. Speaking of which -” He pulled out his wand and vanished their footprints behind them. “Best not to make it easy for anyone else to find us.”

Ron turned away from him and continued to lead the way back towards camp.

“Beating ol’ You-Know-Who is bigger than any of this.” Ron muttered so low that Harry rushed to catch up to him. “But I’m only staying here and doing this for my family. I don’t want any of them to come up next on the list of the missing or dead. And as barmy as this plan is, if Dumbledore came up with it, it’s got to be our best shot.”

Harry didn’t know how to answer that, so he just wordlessly followed behind, turning around every so often to vanish their footprints in the snow. He felt like the world’s biggest arsehole. He had fancied Hermione since their Fourth Year and she him since the end of their Third Year. She had never preferred Ron over him and hadn’t even had romantic feelings towards Ron for at least a year. Hermione had the right to choose whomever she wanted to be with and Ron had no right to demand it be him. But if he wasn’t so angry with Ron over having left, would he have acted upon his feelings or would he have kept his distance from Hermione out of respect for his friend who he thought he’d lost? Everything he was feeling was such a jumbled mess inside him it was impossible to sort it all out. Before long, he heard a light buzzing in his ears from the _Mufflato_ charm surrounding their camp and he charged in first.

Once they were safely within the protection of their camp, Harry repeatedly shouted her name as loud as he could; this situation would only get worse if Ron walked in on her sleeping naked in his bunk. The tent was silent. Behind it, the sky had turned from inky black to stripes of blue, purple, and a slight sliver of gold at the bottom as dawn began to break. Behind him, Ron bounded through the enchantments and began striding aggressively with purpose towards the tent. Harry threw open the front flap of the tent and rushed in, still calling out Hermione’s name.

“What is it Harry?”

Hermione was standing in front of him, thankfully fully clothed and pacing from side to side near the kitchen table.

“Hermione!”

“I was wondering where you got to,” she chided. “I woke up and you weren’t anywhere to be -” Her eyes widened as she finally noticed the sword Harry was holding. “The sword! Harry you found the sword? But how? What happen -”

Ron stormed in behind him, throwing the tent flap aside with a loud _whoosh_. Hermione stopped mid-sentence. Her face face fell and went ashen as she stared at him as if she had seen a ghost. Ron’s returning stare was anguished and full of fury and then he looked down at the ground and put his hands in his pockets, as if it was too painful to see her altogether.

“Hey,” he said sheepishly.

She stepped past Harry and slowly approached, then reached out a hand and gently rested it on Ron’s chest, as if she needed to physically touch him to know that he was real. Then her face contorted into a look of withering rage and she gave him a hard shove on the shoulder.

“Ow! What the hell, Hermione?”

“Hey?” Hermione shouted. “ _Hey_? You leave us for over a month and that’s all you have to say? _Hey_? You’ve got some nerve, Ronald Bilius Weasley!” She wheeled around to turn towards Harry. “Where’s my wand, Harry?”

“I don’t have it,” he lied.

“Give it back to me now!”

“Please calm down Herm -”

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do!”

“Protego!”

An invisible wall of magic went up between Ron and Hermione and Hermione flew backwards and landed on her bum as it repelled her. Hermione quickly got back up, her nostrils flared and she clenched her jaw in rage. Ron fixed her with a cold stare.

“ _I_ have some nerve?” Ron’s voice was dripping with bitterness. “What about you, Miss Hermione Jean Granger? I’m gone for two minutes and you’re off shagging Harry behind my back! And some friend you are to Ginny!”

Hermione’s mouth dropped open at Ron’s words and her withering stare gave way to shock.

“What? How did you -” She turned to Harry, looking somewhere between horrified and furious. Harry? What did you – Why?”

Harry shook his head. “I didn’t.”

He pulled the burnt-out horcrux from his pocket and gestured his head towards it, shamefaced. Hermione moved her eyes between him and it, taking a moment to put it all together. Harry carefully chose his words before he next spoke.

“Ron destroyed it,” he said quietly. “But it didn’t go down without a fight.”

“Oh!” Hermione’s cheeks went pink, but whether from embarrassment or rage Harry couldn’t quite tell. “So it – did it…”

“It showed me the thing it knew would destroy me, Hermione!” Ron roared, stabbing his finger emphatically against his chest. “How could you do that to me? And I had to find out from Tom bloody Riddle!”

“What?” She clenched her hands into fists. “How could _I_ do that to _you_? How dare you speak to me that way, as if I’ve done something wrong! I can do whatever I want with whomever I want! I wasn’t shagging Harry ‘behind your back.’ To do that, we -” here she motioned dramatically between herself and Ron, “would have had to be a couple, which we have never been!”

Her words hit Ron hard; in an instant, he winced and shrunk back as if he had been physically struck.

“Do you know how I found my way back here?” he said quietly, still with a hint of venom but mostly filled with sadness. “I was sleeping in a bar, you know, keeping away from snatchers, and -”

Harry didn’t dare interrupt Ron’s story but made a mental note to ask him what snatchers were.

“-I was listening to the radio early last night and then I heard you talking.”

Hermione snorted, looking skeptical. “You heard me through the radio?”

“No, in my pocket.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Deluminator. “See, it doesn’t just turn on an off the lights. Your voice came out of it.”

And what was I saying?” She huffed in frustration and raised a skeptical eyebrow, but also leaned forward curiously.

“You said my name. ‘Ron.’ And then it was quiet for few seconds and then you said something about wanting to give up.”

Harry’s eyes widened in embarrassment and he turned to Hermione, whose cheeks were turning bright red. He had overheard their post-sex conversation from earlier that evening. Harry wracked his brain: did they say anything else after that? Was it embarrassing?

“Anything else?” Hermione asked in a slightly trembling voice.

Ron shook his head. “No.”

“Oh!” Hermione cried, sounding a bit too relieved.

Ron raised an eyebrow and gave her a quizzical look and the three of them stood in awkward silence for a long moment.

“But,” Ron continued slowly, “I flicked this thing open and a big, blue light appeared from it. It hovered over me and then went inside me, right here -” he pointed at his chest near his heart. “And then I felt this warmth in my chest and I knew if I let the light lead me, it would bring me to you. I thought it meant that – well, I thought it meant we had a special connection. It felt like you touched my heart and I thought it meant you missed me ‘Mione, as much as I missed you.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “You are rather presumptuous.”

“Apparently,” he said dryly.

“So you wait weeks and weeks and then finally come crawling back here because you thought that I would have been crying my eyes out every day and if you just stayed away for long enough you would come back and I would fling myself into your arms, is that it?”

“No!” he shouted angrily. “Is that really all you think of me? Ron Weasley, always out for himself and no one else? Although I will tell you I didn’t expect you to jump on Harry’s cock the second I was gone!”

“It didn’t even happen that way!” she shouted back and then made an angry frustrated noise. “Why am I even explaining myself to you?” She stormed past Ron and the wall he had put up between them. “I’m taking the next watch!”

With that, she was gone from the tent. Harry stood awkwardly and looked everywhere but at Ron. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ron give him a reproachful glare so intense that when Ron took out his wand a few seconds later, Harry thought he might try to hex him. Instead he took down the protective enchantment he had put up, blew right past Harry, and laid down on his bunk.

Harry let out a loud sigh and cricked his neck. Hermione had just gotten to spent the past several minutes blowing off steam, but Harry also had complicated feelings around Ron’s return. He also understood, however, that right then was not the time to air them. He let his head fall back, closed his eyes, and groaned at the added complication in their already seemingly impossible plan. He walked to the nearest chair, flopped down, and stared off into space for a long time while he and Ron sat in tense silence. The only break in the silence was the occasional muffled sniffle from Ron. Harry sat still and pretended to not have heard it. He toyed briefly with the idea of going outside to give Ron some privacy, but he wasn’t ready yet to deal with Hermione’s anger, either. He also wasn’t ready to think about his own feelings about their current situation and what it meant for his and Ron’s friendship, or either of their respective relationships with Hermione and how everything was completely and irreversibly different between the three of them. Instead he chose to daydream, not about Ron or Hermione, but about anything else that had made him happy in the past – flying on his broom; hugging Sirius at 12 Grimmauld Place; drinking butterbeer with Hagrid in his cabin. Each memory let him drift further and further from his current misery.

It was a few hours, or at least felt like a few hours, before Ron broke the silence.

“I didn’t, you know. Stay away for so long because I was trying to manipulate Hermione into liking me.”

Harry startled at the sound of Ron’s voice, but was quick to answer. “I know,” he deadpanned.

Ron and Hermione had both been unnecessarily harsh with each other. Ron was a jealous, needy prat but Harry never thought he was purposely manipulative. Hermione had obviously missed Ron, but she also felt betrayed. And, of course, so did Ron, who wasn’t making things any better by acting like Hermione had cheated on him when all three of them knew that that wasn’t the case.

“I wanted to come back as soon as I left, actually.”

Ron’s voice was contrite and conversational, the anger present from earlier that day gone and replaced with a certain sullenness. For his part, Harry’s feelings hadn’t changed one bit from the moment he had first seen his friend again after he saved his life – the happiness, gratitude, guilt, sorrow, and anger were still very present. His conflicting emotions were so overwhelming that Harry didn’t dare betray any of them.

“Then why didn’t you?” he asked, looking down at his trousers and picking at a non-existent stain near the knee to avoid looking at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Ron was lying on his back on his bunk and staring at the ceiling.

“I apparated right into a group of snatchers.”

“I’d been meaning to ask you: what are snatchers?”

“Oh, right. The forests are full of them. Groups of You-Know-Who’s followers who go around looking for Muggle-borns and truants to bring them back to the Ministry for trial. The Ministry is offering rewards.”

“What?”

For the first time in hours, Harry turned and looked at Ron. His face was red and his eyes looked a little swollen. He was still lying on his bunk and staring at the ceiling. Harry pretended not to notice Ron’s condition and nonchalantly turned back to stare at the front flap of the tent.

“That’s – that’s awful. How did you get away?”

“Fortunately, they weren’t very bright. One of them was part troll from the smell of him. They had a list of everyone the Ministry was offering a reward for. I said I was Stan Shunpike, which was the first name I could think of. He of course wasn’t on the list and they all started arguing over whether or not I was lying. Fortunately, two of them got into a fight and I was able to punch the one holding me, take his wand, disarm the bloke holding my wand, and disapparate away. I splinched myself again, though, so I couldn’t apparate again for a few days. By the time I got back to you, you had both gone. I looked around the forest looking for you for a couple of days, but you didn’t leave any trace. Guess you can congratulate Hermione on her enchantments, because they really work.”

“You can thank her yourself,” Harry muttered.

“I don’t know if I can – well – well, it’s hard enough for me to talk to you.”

“Then why are you?” Harry bit, much more harshly than he had intended.

Harry could feel the anger bubbling up to the surface, but whether it was more with Ron, himself, or even Hermione he couldn’t tell. He cast his eyes down to the floor, but then saw movement out of the corner of his eye and, still keeping his head angled towards the floor he shifted his eyes over to watch Ron. Ron didn’t seem in to mood to hex anyone anymore, but they had also never been in this situation before. For years though Ron had suspected that Harry was shagging, or at least snogging Hermione and so Harry already knew the kind of git he was capable of being. Ron had moved to sit up in his bunk and was now pointedly looking at Harry.

“Well, because we’re going to have to work together, aren’t we? And I’m going to be here for – well, we don’t even know for how long. Might as well try to act like mates.”

Harry turned his head to stare at Ron. He blinked in surprise, not sure how to respond and felt his anger deflate as sure as the deflated look on Ron’s face. He had been in Ron’s position, watching Hermione seemingly fall for someone else in front of him. The difference between he and Ron was that he never felt like he had a right to stake a claim on Hermione, whereas Ron thought he already had and it had been taken away from him. Ron was acting out of line, but he was trying and whether it was for himself, for their friendships, or for some other reason, it was something. Harry had spent well over a month wishing for his friend back and here Ron was trying to offer an olive branch. All the same, while he wanted to accept that olive branch, Harry wasn’t sure where to start rebuilding a friendship over something like this and was quite sure that Ron didn’t, either.

“We can still be mates,” he tried.

Ron’s face went pale and he laid back onto his bunk and stared back up at the ceiling.

“I suppose I couldn’t have expected anything different from Hermione, right? Wanting to be with The Chosen One and all. Quite a few girls at Hogwarts were into that.”

“Ron, that’s really not fair -”

“The Chosen One. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Ron -”

“A lot better than Ron Weasley, regular bloke, right?”

Harry wanted to punch him. Instead he balled up his fists, took a deep breath, and then deadpanned, “you know Hermione. She has never given a damn about my fame.”

“I thought I knew her,” Ron huffed.

“Ron,” he started and then took a deep, calming breath through his nose. “Has Hermione ever agreed to be your girlfriend?”

“Well, she did invite me to that dinner with Professor Slughorn.”

Harry felt like he could rocket through the roof.

“You were _shagging_ Lavender before that party even happened!”

“Alright, fine! We were never anything official. But you know there was an understanding between me and Hermione. We were working up to it.”

“Seriously, Ron? Is that what you honestly think?”

“You knew I liked her, Harry! You knew and then you shagged her anyway, the second I was gone.”

“For the last time, that’s not how it happened!”

Ron sighed. “Guess Riddle was right though – what am I compared to The Chosen One?”

“I never asked for any of it! I don’t want to be ‘The Chosen One’!”

“Oh sure! Poor Harry, getting all the praise and attention and newspaper articles written about him. Poor Quidditch seeker, slayer of dragons, Triwizard champion, with more galleons than he can ever spend in a lifetime!”

“I hate all of it, Ron! I’ve always hated all of it! I didn’t want to be in the Triwizard Championship – I was arm twisted by a Death Eater! I don’t want newspaper articles and fame and attention! I want my mom and dad back! I want to have grown up having a bedroom instead of sleeping in a cupboard and to have a mom and dad who celebrated my birthday and – and gave me hand knitted sweaters every Christmas and sent me Howlers whenever I failed a test! And if I could give you all the fame and attention for that price, I would give it to you right now and never look back! Tell me, Ron, is all that worth your mum and dad and Fred and George and Bill and Charlie and Ginny? Or all those years in The Burrow?”

Ron’s face dropped and he looked speechless. He rubbed his fists over his eyes and sighed.

“Suppose I never thought of it that way.”

“Hermione doesn’t care about my fame! She gets it! And that’s why I like her so much. That’s one of the big reasons why I always liked her.”

Ron sighed again, once again the fight gone from him.He nodded and looked at the floor. Harry could feel the tension slowly eek out of the room and let out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.

“Just promise me one thing, alright? Keep to yourself when I’m around, alright? No snogging and, for Merlin’s sake, no shagging while I’m here, no matter how long it takes to kill these bleeding horcruxes. Alright?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, of course. That’s a given.” They sat in silence for several beats more and then, “Did I hear you have an extra wand?”

“Oh. Right.”

With that, Ron sat up and went through his rucksack and in short order pulled out a wand. Harry walked over to Ron and took the wand with a tense smile.

“Hermione gets her wand back now, yeah?”

Harry shrugged. “Guess so.”

“Probably shouldn’t have given that to you, then. Reckon she’ll hex me the first chance she gets.

“I’ll ask her not to hex you.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”

A tense silence passed between them. Ron looked as if he wanted to ask a question, but every time he opened his mouth he seemed to think better of it. It was difficult for Harry to look at Ron, so instead he admired the new wand. It was shorter than the one he was used to and felt wrong in his hand.

“Well.” Harry cleared his throat. “I suppose I’ll go out and practice some spells.”

Without another word, Harry rushed out of the tent. For as awkward as it was sitting in silence with Ron, it was far worse to try to exchange pleasantries when they were both still angry with one another. He didn’t particularly want to be around Hermione either, though. He suspected that if Ron was willing to act respectful enough, she would get over her anger eventually. Given Ron’s recent jealous rant, however, that seemed unlikely.

He was unsuccessfully trying to cast _engorgio_ on a spider when Hermione walked up behind him.

“What are you doing, Harry? How did you get a wand?”

Hermione was eyeing him with curiosity. She didn’t look angry anymore, but Harry guessed that was only because Ron wasn’t gracing them with his presence.Harry recounted Ron’s story about the snatchers, then offered her back her wand.

“I know he can be a git, but please don’t hex Ron. He saved my life last night.”

He launched into the story about the doe, the frozen lake, the horcrux’s attack, and Ron bravery and selflessness, both in saving his life and then again by destroying the horcrux even after it had tried to entice Ron to attack him instead of it by showing him flashes of their first time together. When he got to that last bit, Hermione went pale and he held her hand up to her forehead, looking as if she was about to be sick.

“Before that, he also tried to get back to us several times. And we’ll never be able to defeat You-Know-Who if all we’re doing is infighting.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes and brusquely took her wand.

“I assume you’ll be taking next shift,” she sniffed and then walked back into the tent.

Harry watched her walk away. They all knew how important this mission was; he believed they would eventually move past this enough to work together. In the meantime he just hoped against hope that she and Ron would just not talk for the rest of the evening. His wish was not granted. Half an hour later, he heard indistinct shouting from inside the tent. Fearing an oncoming fight, Harry rushed back inside. As he entered, he saw Ron and Hermione facing off against each other so completely focused on each other that they hadn’t noticed him enter. Hermione’s nostrils were flaring and she looked as fiery as Harry had ever seen her. Ron appeared more pleading than angry and he held his hands out palms up in entreaty.

“You _forgive_ me?” Hermione roared, standing at a fighting stance with her hands balled up into fists. “And what exactly have I done that needs to be forgiven?”

“I’m just saying,” he pleaded, “that I understand that you shagged Harry because you were angry with me. I was wrong for leaving.”

“You’re damn right you were wrong for leaving!” Hermione screamed in a voice so shrill it might soon only be able to be heard by dogs. “But how dare you narcissistically assume my relationship with Harry is all about you! It’s none of your business what I do or with whom, but for your information, I did not shag Harry to get back at you for leaving. You had nothing to do with it!”

Ron straightened as he noticed Harry. Hermione whipped around to see what he was looking at, unballed her fists and then flexed her hands.

“Harry!” Ron said nervously. “We were just -”

“I heard,” Harry cut in cooly.

“You need to get one thing through that thick, oafish skull of yours, Ronald Weasley!” Hermione angrily chided. “I did not turn down your advances at the end of Sixth Year because I was being shy, or playing hard to get, or still angry at you for snogging Lavender repeatedly in front of me -”

That Ron had ever made any kind of advance on Hermione was news to Harry. Ron had only ever told Harry about his intentions to ask Hermione to be his girlfriend at some point at the beginning of summer, after their Sixth Year was over and Hermione would have already turned him down.

“- It’s because I simply did not want to snog you,” she went on. “When I told you I wanted to only be friends, I meant it!”

Back when he and Hermione had first admitted their feelings for one another, Harry had begun to develop suspicions that Ron knew Hermione wasn’t interested in him and had only told him that he and Hermione were about to start dating as a way to keep Harry away from her. Now he was sure of it.

Hermione pointed at Harry while giving Ron an icy stare.

“I am with Harry. And I plan to continue to be with Harry. As his girlfriend.”

Harry’s heart leapt in his chest. He had hoped she would want to continue to be with him after they were no longer alone, scared, and hungry during the war but she had never referred to herself as his girlfriend before. Given the difficult and serious situation they were in, it took Harry a surprising amount of strength to keep his mouth from splitting into an inappropriately wide smile.

Hermione hadn’t seemed to notice the significance of what she had said, perhaps because she was so angry with Ron, or because she had simply assumed this whole time that she and Harry were a couple and what she had just said was no big reveal or revelation. She stopped pointing at Harry and moved to wag a finger at Ron.

“And you will need either to accept that, stop this awful nonsense, and help us focus on finding more horcruxes and winning this war, or you can leave!”

Here she pointed at the mouth of the tent beside Harry. Harry winced at the harshness of her words but didn’t dare argue with her. She wasn’t wrong after all, but there were better ways to put it. Ron’s face crumbled. He looked like he did that instant when the horcrux had shown him the images of he and Hermione together and Harry wondered with growing trepidation if he was about to cry. Instead, Ron hung his head and slipped his hands into his pockets.

“Right,” he muttered. “Guess I’ll go out and take the next watch then I guess.”

Without another word he shuffled past Harry and out of the tent. Hermione huffed in exasperation then walked over to her beaded bag, pulled out a book, and firmly plopped down in a chair, threw open the book, and stared down at it.

“Was all that necessary?” Harry asked tentatively, not wanting to throw her into another rage.

“Yes. Trust me Harry, you walked in during the nicer part of that conversation.”

Harry wanted to argue but knew he would get nowhere fast if he tried to just then. A few hours later, Ron re-entered the tent and mumbled an apology, then went to bed. That night he and Hermione climbed into their separate bunks when they went to bed. Harry missed Hermione’s added warmth. The next few nights without her were going to be difficult until he re-adjusted to sleeping alone. He was glad that at least the first day had passed without anyone hexing anyone else.

Over the next several days, their daily life largely went back to the way it was before Ron had left them. There were some changes, of course. With someone knowing their location well enough to give them the sword, Hermione hadn’t wanted to take any chances and apparated them to a new location. It was further south than they had ever been and where she had dropped them was warm enough for it not have snowed yet in the season. With the warmer weather, Harry found himself spending more time outside the tent to avoid the thick tension inside. Without having to take turns wearing that damnedable locket though, everyone’s mood was more stable than it had been in a long time, even Ron’s. Harry could still see him suspiciously watching he and Hermione around each other, but whatever feelings he had about them as a couple he was keeping to himself. Ron was much more somber than usual but also went out of his way to be considerate to Hermione. Hermione regarded him with suspicion at every turn but at least wasn’t hostile towards him. Overall, Harry dared to be optimistic about the future, not only for the three of them and their friendship but also for the war in general. They had just destroyed a horcrux and they had the sword of Gryffindor. With another horcrux down and the power to bring down the rest of them, Harry felt light despite their current interpersonal drama.

After weeks of being able to touch Hermione whenever he wanted though, it was harder than Harry realized it could be to stop. He always knew he and Hermione would need to put a hold on shagging each other and, as a hormonal seventeen year old, he missed that dearly, but he was taken by surprise that it wasn’t all he missed. Until Ron had come back, Harry never actually realized how many times a day he would touch Hermione, even if just to put a hand on the small of her back as she did dishes, or brush hands as they passed one another. Not being able to touch her was driving him a little mad. They would still sneak in little snogging sessions whenever they could, but it wasn’t enough. Harry looked forward to the end of the war and the return of actual privacy so he could again be with Hermione the way he wanted. He could tell by the way she sometimes stared a little too long at his lips or let her stare linger over his body as he walked by that she felt the same way.

The most truly surprising change that came, though, was that Ron began reading books. The first time Harry caught him reading was a few days after his return. Harry and Hermione had just come back in from a walk around the perimeter of their enchantments and a quick secret snogging session. Ron had looked up from one of Hermione’s books and eyed them with just the slightest amount of suspicion before looking back down at the book without a word.

“Have you found something?” Harry asked Ron with growing interest, hoping he had stumbled across a way to find horcruxes. He couldn’t imagine any other reason for Ron to pick up a book.

Ron raised an eyebrow as if Harry had lost his mind and gestured towards the title, which Harry wasn’t close enough to be able to read. He crossed the tent and sat down next to Ron to see: _The Metaphysics of Magic_.

“No,” Ron muttered glumly. “Kind of dry really.”

“Then why are you reading it?”

Ron shrugged. “It was on Hermione’s pile of books and… trying to take an interest,” he said a bit more loudly, Harry suspected for Hermione’s benefit.

Two weeks in, Ron had worked through nine books and Harry was beginning to suspect that Ron just daydreamed as he stared at such books as _Sonnets of a Sorcerer_ , _Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology_ , and _An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe_ , and just turned the pages whenever he felt was appropriate. Hermione just kept handing him new books whenever he asked and acted like she hadn’t given a single thought to his new supposed reading habits. One night after dinner about three weeks after Ron’s return, Harry watched Hermione as she sat in front of the kitchen table biting her lip and staring unseeingly once again at _Tales of Beedle the Bard_. She had been uncharacteristically quiet that evening and even Ron had started looking up from his newest book, _Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles_ , and casting her occasional concerned looks. Harry had just about given up on trying to figure out what was wrong with her and was setting about trying to use his new wand to fix a slightly wobbly chair leg when Hermione surprised them both by speaking.

“I think we should go see Xenophilius Lovegood.”

Harry stopped his spell mid-swish. Ron nearly fell out of his chair, but wasted no time in responding.

“I agree,” Ron readily replied, hastily standing up quickly so as to not fall over with the chair, which tumbled to the ground behind him.

Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry, what? Why? I thought you said he was a nutter.”

Hermione turned her book around towards them and tapped the mysterious symbol on the page.

“He is. But -” She held up her book and gestured emphatically towards the symbol that had already fascinated her for months at the top of the page. “Someone inked this symbol in. It’s not an original part of the book. Which means it must be important. Xenophilius was wearing a necklace with this exact symbol at Bill and Fleur’s wedding. It can’t just be a coincidence. I think we need to find out what this symbol is.”

Harry shook his head. “It’s too public. Which means it’s also too dangerous. We don’t need another Godric’s Hollow.”

“I think we should vote on it,” Ron chimed in. “All in favor of going -”

With that, he shot up his hand before even Hermione. She pursed her lips and quirked her brows in suspicion and then raised her hand as well.

“Outvoted. Sorry, Harry,” said Ron with a wide smile as he clapped Harry on the back.

Later that night when Ron was on his watch, Harry left the tent and joined him.

“You only agreed to go see Xenophilius Lovegood to get back into Hermione’s good books, didn’t you?”

“All’s fair in love and war,” Ron said with a sly smile.

Harry sighed. “And I suppose this is a bit of both, isn’t it?”

Ron turned away from him and looked up to the night sky.

“May the best wizard win, Harry.”


	2. Afterward

**Five Months Later** **at the Battle of Hogwarts**

“Harry, please! There must be another way!”

Hermione fiercely gripped Harry’s hand to keep him from turning away from her to march into the Forbidden Forest behind him and to his death. Even as she said the words that she desperately wanted to be true, she didn’t believe them. She understood what Harry had just told her about Snape’s memories he had seen in the Pensieve and cursed herself that she hadn’t put it all together sooner herself. She had read about horcruxes and the affects of tying a piece of one’s soul to a living thing. The signs that Harry himself was a horcrux were all there, she had just refused to see them. At the same time, however, she felt herself possessed with rage and betrayal – at Harry, at Dumbledore, even at Snape. Snape was brave and had thrown himself in harm’s way for years to keep Harry safe, but it had been borne of the most hideous selfishness she had ever known. Dumbledore had been there for them for years when they needed him most growing up, had knowingly watched her fall in love with Harry and had even called her into his office once to ask about it and had praised her for her affections even as she had denied them to her Headmaster. And he had done it all knowing that Harry’s days were numbered. And Harry! She knew she shouldn’t, that it was selfish, but she felt the sting of Harry’s betrayal the most acutely. If she and Ron hadn’t noticed that Harry was missing from the Great Hall, if she hadn’t guessed where he would have wandered off too, and if they hadn’t caught Harry outside the Headmaster’s office just in time before he put on his Invisibility Cloak, would he have even sought them out to say goodbye? She doubted it.

“That’s right,” Ron chimed in. “This is mad. Hermione will find a way. She always does. She’s the smartest witch we know.”

“Hermione. Ron.” Harry’s voice was calm and level, in the way Hermione knew it always was whenever he was overwhelmed with emotion and trying to keep himself in check. “Dumbledore was the greatest wizard of our time. If there was another way – if there was any other way – don’t you think he would have found it?”

Hermione stared into Harry’s scared, handsome face and felt tears well up in her eyes. She knew he was right. Dumbledore may have cruelly manipulated and betrayed them all by spending years caring for and nurturing Harry, only to send him off to the slaughter. But she didn’t for one moment think that Dumbledore had ever actually enjoyed the thought of Harry’s death. If there was an alternative, he would have found it. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to tear the entirety of every library on earth apart to find something else – anything else to keep him with her.

“Now, I have to do this,” Harry insisted, his eyes turned pleading. “We only have a few minutes left before our hour is up and this school will be under attack again by Death Eaters. I can’t let anyone else die, especially when this is the way it has to end anyway, when this was my destiny all along.”

Hermione burst into tears and pulled Harry in for a crushing hug. Harry squeezed her back with just as much gusto, as if he was trying to pull her body into his. If it was possible, she would let him. The whole situation felt surreal and Hermione suddenly felt as if she was across the field watching herself hug Harry before letting him go to his untimely death.

“Let me go with you,” she heard herself say. “Let me be there with you until the end.”

Harry pulled away from the hug and shook his head.

“No. This is something I must do alone. I need you and Ron to stay here and keep fighting. Try to kill the snake. Kill Voldemort. It’s the only thing left to do to make sure all of this wasn’t for nothing. Please.” He had mostly been focused on Hermione during this speech, but here he looked hard at the both of them. “Don’t let me die in vain.”

“We won’t, Harry,” Ron whispered.

Harry nodded and tried on a faint smile, but it quickly faltered.

“Goodbye.”

With that, he marched off into the forest without a single glance backwards. Hermione sobbed as she watched Harry disappear into the forest to find Voldemort. To meet his death. For not the first time, she replayed a sleepy conversation she had had with Harry months ago: ‘ _Maybe we should just stay here. Grow old.’_ He had said _‘If only we could,’_ or something like that. They could have. If only she had kept him in bed that night, if she had just pushed a little harder, they could have had a long life together. Once she could no longer see him through the trees, she buried her head in her hands and sobbed embarrassingly loudly for the time with him they would no longer have. She felt a pair of large hands rest against her back and then she was pulled into Ron’s chest. Hermione spluttered and pushed him away.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m just trying to comfort you. Merlin, ‘Mione, you act like I have splattergroit!”

Hermione gasped several times and then took a steadying breath, wiped her eyes, and gave Ron a cold stare.

“Well, don’t. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

Ron’s mouth dropped open and he stared at her with a wounded, slack-jawed expression.

“What?”

“Harry’s out of the way, isn’t he? It’s what you’ve wanted this whole time, isn’t it?”

Ron looked as if she had struck him.

“Hermione, I – I -” he shook his head as if he wasn’t sure he had even heard her right, but then continued. “I wanted you to love me instead of him. I never wanted him – well…”

He gestured to the forest. Because the reality of what was happening was too heavy to even say. Because she looked into his eyes and saw that he felt the pain of Harry’s loss just as heavily as she did. She regretted what she said immediately. They stood in uncomfortable silence for a few beats.

“Is that what you really think of me?” Ron burst out. “You think I want my best friend dead all for the sake of – of -” He moved his hands vaguely between the two of them. He closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “I love him too, you know.”

She felt like a monster. And she knew as soon as she had said it that she was horribly wrong. Of course Ron loved Harry, of course he didn’t want him gone. Not forever, not like this. In her grief she had let her frustrations over months of Ron’s sweet but not-so-subtle romantic overtures burst out of her at the worst possible time and she couldn’t take it back.

“I – Ron, I’m so sorry.”

A few tears were rolling down Ron’s cheeks.

“I get it now. I understand why you can’t love me. Because if I was really like that, I wouldn’t love me, either.” He turned away from her. “See you later.”

With that, Ron shuffled off towards the castle. Hermione stared after him and began to cry anew as she realized she had lost both of her best friends. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to grieve – Harry was right: destroying the horcruxes and killing Voldemort was all there was left to do. And she would do it until her last dying breath if necessary. With one last look into the forest, she also took off towards the castle. She still had a war to fight.

When they reached the castle and went back inside the Great Hall, Ron slunk back off to his family, who were still huddled sobbing around Fred’s body. Hermione chose a place to stand near Neville and Luna. By now Neville, Ginny, and Oliver Wood had managed to bring in all their wounded and dead and he and Luna were standing over the pale, twitching figure of Lavender Brown as Luna worked various healing spells and whispered reassurances in her ear about the potions Madam Pomfrey would be administering to her shortly.

As Hermione stood there among the masses of grieving and dead, she never would have believed that at that very moment Harry was not dead, was being hauled back to Hogwarts in Hagrid’s arms, and in the expanse of just an hour the Great Hall would be filled with cries of victory and celebration as Harry stood triumphant and Voldemort lay dead in another room. And yet, an hour after their tearful goodbye there she sat in the Great Hall in front of a feast greater than any she had ever seen. Ron had nodded to her indifferently when she sat beside him and across from Luna, Neville, and a small throng of Neville’s new admirers. Harry – muddied, bruised, and clearly exhausted – was being shuttled from one group of people to the next, giving out reassuring words and being hugged and cried on by people whom he had never met. Beside her, Ron hungrily shoveled two bangers and a large forkful of eggs into his mouth in one go and Hermione felt oddly reassured that, as they sat among the crumbling and blood-stained stonework of their former school, at least some things hadn’t changed.

Hermione picked at her own eggs, lost in her thoughts. She barely noticed when Luna wandered off, or registered whatever it was she had said that momentarily drove everyone’s attention to one of the broken-out windows. In what could have been a few seconds or several minutes – time had started to lose all meaning to her – she felt a tug on her sleeve and then Harry’s face was peering up at her and Ron, the rest of him shrouded by his Invisibility Cloak.

“Come on,” he hissed.

Dutifully, she and Ron rose from the table and slipped out of the room before anyone, save for the Malfoys who were uncertainly huddled in a corner, could notice their departure. Once they were out of the room, Harry threw the Invisibility cloak off of himself and the three of them walked through the emptied corridors of their once grand school.

“Blimey!” Ron exclaimed as he turned around in a circle and admired the extensive damage. “Do you think they’ll ever be able to repair this?”

Hermione nodded. “The castle has a lot of self-healing enchantments. For this extensive amount of damage, it will take a while, but with some extra help it will be back to its former condition by the start of next term.”

Ron stared at Hermione in slack-jawed awe, seeming to have forgotten his former bitterness.

“Blimey!” he repeated.

“Harry, where are we going?” Hermione asked.

“Away.” Harry sounded older and more exhausted than she had ever heard him in her entire life. After a moment’s further pause, he added. “Gryffindor Tower. After all this, all I want is a sandwich and a nap. Do you think Kreacher would bring me a sandwich?”

On the way to Gryffindor Tower and then afterwards as Harry laid down on his old bunk as Ron and Hermione sat on bunks on either side of him, Harry shared with them all that had happened in the forest and what he had seen after being hit with Voldemort’s Killing Curse. After he had finished his tale, he quickly dropped off to sleep. Hermione called for Kreature and asked him if he would please prepare a plate of food to be ready for Harry when he finally awoke. Ron stood as if he was about to leave, but then looked down at Harry’s sleeping form with a look of awe and tenderness in his face. He muttered something so softly that Hermione almost couldn’t hear it, but she was able to make it out all the same.

“The best wizard won.”

“Yes,” Hermione agreed, assuming Ron could only be talking about the most recent fight between Harry and Voldemort. “He did.”

Ron sighed and shook his head.

“We’re not friends, Hermione. And I’m starting to think we never were.”

Hermione nodded and swallowed against the lump in her throat. “I know I deserve that.”

Ron swallowed hard and, for a change, he looked just as exhausted as Harry.

“Reckon he’ll be safe now. I’ll stay with him just in case.”

Hermione nodded, understanding that she was being dismissed. There would be time later, probably years, quite possibly even decades, for her to spend time with Harry. But Ron was a much different story. She just hoped that time would heal her wounds with him, just as the school around them was recovering slowly.


End file.
